News & Politics

Midterm Elections Were Great for the Alcohol Delivery Business

According to booze-delivery app Drizly.

Typical Drizly customer last night, probably. Photograph via Shutterstock.

Whether people were cracking bottles in celebration or drenching their despair, Tuesday’s elections had at least one non-partisan winner: alcohol delivery. Drizly, an app that serves thirsty DC residents who are either too busy or too lazy to go to the liquor store, reported record business on Election Day, with twice as many orders yesterday as a typical Tuesday, the company says.

It might have also helped that Drizly dropped its delivery fees yesterday, with users entering promotion codes doubling as party identification: “Blue” for Democrats, “Red” for Republicans, and “Perot” for independents, because the 1990s will never end. While Democrats hold a three-to-one voter registration advantage over Republicans in the District, their majority is even more lopsided when it comes to phone-based booze orders. Drizly says 69 percent of its orders last night came from self-identifying Democrats, compared with just 8 percent from Republicans.

Chart via Drizly.

Find Benjamin Freed on Twitter at @brfreed.

Staff Writer

Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.